Early September Plot in Pictures
Category: Harvest
A Medley of Summer Harvests
Here are a few pictures of some of my harvests from mid-July through the end of August. Notably absent are tomatoes, despite having 12 (!) tomato plants. Thanks, rats and birds 🙁
August Mini-Bouquet
First Tomatoes
Finally, my first vine-ripened tomatoes of the season! I already picked two blushing, green ones to ripen on the counter, but these two are the real deal. One Mountain Sunrise and one Caiman. These are the first two that I harvested after covering whatever the rats left on the vines with those wire mesh bags. It seems to be working. I hope to get at least a few handfuls from my 12 plants.
Getting the Garlic Ready for Storage
Last night, after three weeks of curing, I cleaned my garlic and prepped it for storage. For the hardnecks, I just clean off the dirt and the outermost papery skin, cut off the stems and root hairs and placed them in a ceramic crock to live in my pantry for the coming months. I will use those up first as hardnecks do not keep as well as softnecks.
I also braided the softneck garlic and added a few strawflowers for decoration. The braid now hangs in my pantry. As always, I saved the two largest heads of each type (4 heads total) as seed garlic. I will plant those cloves in early November for next year’s harvest.
Pesto
First round of pesto in the freezer! Last night I processed the basil I had harvested the day before and made pesto. I still had garlic scapes in the fridge, and used a few of those plus pine nuts, olive oil and salt. To make the pesto more versatile and to be considerate of pesto lovers in my circle who cannot have dairy, I did not add cheese. Cheese can always be added later. I then froze the pesto in ice cube trays and transferred the (ten) frozen cubes to Ziplock bags this morning to freeze for the longer term.
Shallot Braids
I braided some of my shallots today, and added a few strawflowers from last year’s garlic braid. This year’s strawflowers are not quite ready yet. I am so excited to have them hanging in my pantry with the drying herbs.
First Cucumbers
First pickling cucumbers (they are big) plus rainbow chard, basil (from pruning the tips), and flowers.
More Harvesting – Garlic and First Zucchini
This morning, I harvested my garlic. The total haul: 18 Russian Red hardnecks and 17 Transylvanian softnecks. On November 8, I had planted 16 hardnecks (some of them split resulting in 18 bulbs) and 18 softnecks (meaning I only lost one over the winter). They will now spend a day or two on the porch airing out before I brush off the dirt and hang them to dry and cure in my hallway for about three weeks.
I also harvested my first Cocozelle zucchini (zucchino?). Looking forward to grilling it and the two eggplants I harvested yesterday. After grilling, I will add a tiny bit more olive oil and sprinkle a little chopped mint on the zucchini and chopped basil on the eggplant. Served with fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, olives, prosciutto, crusty bread – perfect summer antipasti!
Garlic update (July 14): This morning, I cleaned the dirt off the garlic – careful to not take off any papery skin – and tied them in bundles of about 8 bulbs each. They now join the shallots in my airy back hallway to cure. It is fine if some dirt stays. It will all be removed after the garlic has been fully cured.
Eggplant
Today, I also harvested two Asian eggplants. This deserves a separate post and needs to be celebrated, as I have not had much luck with eggplants in my plot in the past. I did not grow this particular plant from seed but rather purchased it from Neighborhood Farms back in May. It did exceptionally well in my plot, and today, I harvested the first two eggplants.
